


The Subway Adventure

by callmechristinae



Series: Livejournal Migration [4]
Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-01
Updated: 2006-02-01
Packaged: 2017-12-26 21:32:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmechristinae/pseuds/callmechristinae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark seeks adventure on New York’s public transit system, Roger gets dragged along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Subway Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions my previous story, The Search for the Perfect Pumpkin.

“Close on Roger, pouting instead of enjoying the adventure.” Mark zoomed in on Roger’s face, taking in the annoyed expression his roommate was currently wearing. His hair had the just got out of bed look that some guys spent an hour perfecting, but Roger had it because he had just been dragged out of bed by his overly enthusiastic roommate.  
  
“It’s a fuckin’ subway Mark,” Roger groaned, knocking his head on the window behind him, “We’ve been on it how many times?”  
  
“But we’ve never been on this route.” Mark continued to film the few people on the subway around them, one arm hooked around the pole in the middle of the walkway to keep from falling. He clutched it tighter as the subway car jolted, the annoyed stockbroker moving out of his frame.  
  
“That’s because there’s never been any reason to,” Roger muttered, swinging his legs up to rest on the pole to which Mark was clinging. He crossed his arms over his chest, closing his eyes and ignoring the two young girls in the corner staring at him. Mark filmed their giggling with a smile. Just wait until they met him.  
  
“C’mon, indulge my adventurous spirit.” Mark stumbled slightly as the subway jolted again, knocking Roger’s legs to the ground with a thump. The loss of balance caused Roger to straighten in his seat, and he opened his eyes to glare at the filmmaker.  
  
“Why the hell should I? I was perfectly comfortable in bed, and I would have continued to be perfectly comfortable if you hadn’t dragged me out on this damn ‘adventure,’” Roger complained, hugging one knee to his chest and resting his chin on it. Mark hated it when Roger whined. It didn’t make him feel guilty in the slightest, most of the time, but it did annoy him.  
  
“I went with you to the fuckin’ pumpkin farm on Halloween,” Mark pointed out, smiling at the young girl sitting next to her mother at the other end of the car. She waved shyly, her pigtails bobbing as she bounced in her seat. Mark waved back gently, the pole firmly held with the inside of his arm. Roger watched the whole exchange with a soft smile on his face.  
  
“But that had a purpose,” Roger pointed out, once the girl’s mother began to lecture her daughter on the dangers of strangers.  
  
“It took four and a half hours Roger,” Mark sighed, cautiously filming the two leather clad men nearby. The two looked like they kept all the tattoo parlors in the East Village in business on their own.  
  
“But it was worth every minute of it.” Roger grinned widely, winking at the two teenage girls in the corner. They quickly turned away, giggling and speaking rapidly to each other.   
  
“You didn’t like anything you carved and we ended up with a burnt pumpkin pie.” Mark rolled his eyes, but he still filmed their antics. They would seem slightly out of place in his footage when he edited later, dressed in clothes from stores that he and Roger couldn’t afford to window shop at.  
  
“Yeah, but we had fun.” The girls glanced over at the rocker and began giggling again.  
  
“Yeah, right,” Mark muttered, very quickly becoming annoyed with the two teenagers. Their perfect hair annoyed him, their heavy but unbelievably well done makeup annoyed him, and their fuckin’ giggling was really getting on his nerves.  
  
“We did.” Roger frowned, seeing the bitter look on Mark’s face as the filmmaker turned away from the two girls.  
  
“Yeah,” Mark mumbled back, his glare making the nearby stockbroker he was focusing on slightly nervous.  
  
“C’mon, don’t get all bitchy on me.” Roger regretted the words the minute they left his mouth, knowing what would be coming next. They had gone through this too many times for him not to know.  
  
“You’re telling  _me_  not to get bitchy?”  
  
And Roger was right. “Fine,” Roger responded pleadingly, stopping the argument from going any farther. “I’ll go along with this shit, just come on over here.” Roger patted the seat next to him, watching Mark’s slim frame swing about as the subway car jolted to a stop.  
  
“No,” Mark retorted defiantly, ignoring the fact that his body was being tossed about like a rag doll as the subway shuddered back to life. He chuckled though at the expression on the girls’ faces as one of the gangsters nodded at them.  
  
“Mark.”  
  
“Roger.”  
  
“ _Mark._ ”  
  
“ _Roger._ ”  
  
“Stop it.”  
  
“Stop what.”  
  
“Acting like…like…” Roger grasped for a word, trying to think of something before Mark found something that would quickly turn the conversation around and embarrass him.  
  
“Like what?” Mark asked innocently, turning the camera on his friend.  
  
“Like…like…”  
  
“Like you?” Roger should have expected that. So, he responded best he knew how.  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
Mark laughed, finally putting his camera away in his bag. He tossed his bag on the ground beside Roger before slowly spinning around the pole like Collins had done on that Christmas a few years ago.  
  
“Stop laughing at me,” Roger whined, trying to sound mad but not really succeeding.  
  
“Aw, did I hurt wittle Roggie’s feelings.” Mark paused and pouted his lips, drawing a chuckle from the songwriter.  
  
“Shut up and sit your ass down before you hurt yourself.” Roger scooted over in his seat to give Mark some room to the left of him  
  
“Fine. Close on Roger who has just realized he acts like a five year old,” Mark made his fingers into a square, framing his roommate with his hands. He plopped down onto the hard seat, enjoying the expression on the teenage girls’ faces when Roger softly draped an arm over his shoulders.  
  
“I’m not the one who still has his baby blanket,” Roger whispered, his breath making Mark shiver slightly.  
  
“It’s not a baby blanket. It’s a quilt and it keeps us warm.” Mark pouted, crossing his arms over his chest and burrowing deeper into the rocker’s side.  
  
“Uh huh,” Roger acknowledged, obviously not seeing the difference.  
  
“Well, maybe I’ll keep it all to myself tonight.” Mark enjoyed the look of disbelief on his boyfriend’s face. He looked down to the ground and pulled his legs up to his chest, curling up in a ball on the unforgiving New York Subway seat. He glanced up and chuckled as he saw the two girls scooting to the other end of the car as the tattooed men continued to smile at them. The girls obviously didn’t come to this part of town much.  
  
“Let’s not do anything crazy now,” Roger responded, following Mark’s gaze. The filmmaker was too amused with the girls’ nervousness that he didn’t notice the two men looking at him and whispering to each other. Roger wrapped an arm protectively around Mark’s waist and sent a withering glare their way, and the two men immediately looked away.  
  
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to infect your manliness with my childhood.” Mark laughed, tickling Roger’s ribs.  
  
“C’mon, it’s fuckin’ winter! I’ll freeze my ass off.” Roger pulled the filmmaker closer to him, and Mark shifted to wrap his arm around the songwriter’s waist. He rested his head softly on Roger’s leather covered shoulder, his eyes closing in contentment.  
  
“Ok, I’ll share it if you’re a good boy,” Mark promised.  
  
“I’m always a good boy.” Roger grinned and Mark’s rather undignified snort. “At least, most of the time I’m a good boy.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“I am.”  
  
“Yeah, I heard you,” Mark assured, gently patted Roger’s chest.  
  
The two sat in silence for a few minutes, the only noises coming from the other passengers. The stockbroker shifted through his newspaper restlessly, making odd little noises as he turned to certain pages. The young girl was laughing and telling jokes, her mother smiling and indulging her quietly. The two men had fallen completely silent, staring at the map of New York on the wall of the car. The two girls gossiped quietly with one another, obviously discussing the two Bohemians.  
  
“Could you at least tell me why we’re doing this?” Roger begged, even though he found himself satisfied with how the trip was going.  
  
“To get out of the house, get some new footage, check out Collins’ new apartment.”  
  
“Wait…when did Collins get a new apartment?” Roger wracked his brain, trying to remember a new apartment for  _anyone_  coming up in conversation recently.  
  
“Remember last week when he told us that he moved?” Mark asked, not bothering to open his eyes.  
  
“Oh yeah.” Roger didn’t really remember much of that conversation. He had been a bit preoccupied with the smoke coming from the hot plate. Why Maureen thought it would be okay to leave the Chinese take out  _in_  the paper box while she heated it was beyond him.  
  
“It’s closer to the hospital and his sister,” Mark explained, gently trailing his fingers up and down Roger’s side.  
  
“But further away from us?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“So, that’s why we have to take the subway?”  
  
Mark grinned, looking up into Roger’s eyes. “I knew you weren’t as dumb as people say.”  
  
“Hey! You know, I was in the fuckin’ special classes in high school.”  
  
“Why am I not surprised?”  
  
“Not those you moron.” Roger gently touched his nose to Mark’s. “Like, the gifted and talented ones.”  
  
“Really?” Mark straightened up, his eyes widening in surprise.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
The two continued to look at each other for a moment before Mark closed his eyes and snuggled back into Roger’s side.  
  
“I don’t believe you.”  
  
“Well, I don’t care if you don’t want to admit I’m smarter than you.”  
  
“Roger, I graduated high school in three years. I don’t think you can top that.”  
  
“Three years? What the hell? You can do that?” Roger asked, the surprise and confusion raising the pitch of his voice slightly.  
  
“Obviously.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I left college in three years,” Roger shot back, a wide grin on his face.  
  
“Dropping out a year early is not the same as being on an accelerated track.”  
  
“Stop it with your logic shit.”  
  
Mark smiled, squeezing Roger with a slightly awkward one armed hug. “Don’t worry Roger. I don’t think you’re a  _complete_  idiot.”  
  
“Gee, thanks.”  
  
“No problem.”  
  
The two rode through the next two stops in silence, Roger glaring when the two punks exited the car. He grinned when they stumbled over each other in their haste to get out. He silently worked through chords in his mind, every so often pausing to run his hands through Mark’s hair.  
  
“So, how long till we reach Collins’?”  
  
Mark opened his eyes and turned to glance at the map to his left. “It’s at the next stop.”  
  
“Have you seen this place yet?”  
  
“Nope. First time.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
The two fell into silence again before Roger thought of something that could bring about some amusement.  
  
“Pookie…OW! FUCK!” Roger rubbed the side that Mark had jabbed rather forcefully. He was hoping for some amusement, but not pain.  
  
“You ever call me ‘pookie’ again and you’re forever banished to the couch,” Mark growled, poking his finger into Roger’s chest.  
  
“Ok snugglebunny.”  
  
Mark looked up and glared at Roger.  
  
“Honeybunch?”  
  
Mark’s eyes narrowed slightly.  
  
“Babe?”  
  
Mark’s eyes were narrowed to mere slits, his face reddening slightly.  
  
“Marky?”  
  
“I guess I can live with that one,” Mark sighed, the air making a slight whooshing sound as Roger squeezed him.  
  
“My Marky.”  
  
The subway came to a stop, the motion once again causing all the passengers to cling to each other for dear life. Roger kept both arms wrapped loosely around Mark to keep him from falling.  
  
“C’mon, let’s go check out Collins’ new digs!” Mark shouted, leaping up and out of Roger’s arms. He tossed his bag over his shoulder and adjusted his scarf before grabbing Roger’s hand and pulling him towards the exit. He didn’t notice the soft eyes and smiles the two girls made at the antics of the two Bohemians.  
  
Roger grinned, allowing himself to be pulled along, his hand tightening in Mark’s. “Ok Marky.”  



End file.
